Fuzzy Matching Smart Way of Finding Similar Names Using Fuzzywuzzy

Matching strings should be one of the first natural language processing problem that human encounter since we start use computer to handle data. Unlike numerical value which has an exact logic to compare them, it is very hard to say how alike two strings are for a computer. One may compare them character by character and have an idea of how many characters in the pair of stings are the same. Unfortunately in most application we need computer to perceive strings like we do and therefore we have to use fuzzy matching. Fuzzy matching on names is never straight forward though, the definition of how “difference” of two names are really depends case by case. For example with restaurant names, matching of words like “cafe” “bar” and “restaurant” are consider less valuable then matching of some other less common words. Also, do we consider company names that matches partly (like “Happy Unicorn company” and Happy Unicorn co.”) are the same?

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After having a career as a Data Scientist and Developer Advocate, Cheuk dedicated her work to the open-source community and working as a community manager at OpenSSF. She has co-founded Humble Data, a beginner Python workshop that has been happening around the world. She has served the EuroPython Society board for two years and is now a fellow and director of the Python Software Foundation.